Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment, as examples. Semiconductor devices are typically fabricated by sequentially depositing insulating or dielectric layers, conductive layers, and semiconductive layers of material over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various material layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon.
A transistor is an element that is utilized extensively in semiconductor devices. There may be thousands of transistors on a single integrated circuit (IC) in some applications, for example. One common type of transistor used in semiconductor device fabrication is a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET).
Multiple gate field-effect transistors (MuGFETs) are a recent development in semiconductor technology which typically are MOSFETs that incorporate more than one gate into a single device. The multiple gates may be controlled by a single gate electrode, where the multiple gate surfaces act electrically as a single gate. The multiple gates may also be controlled by independent gate electrodes. One type of MuGFET is referred to as a fin field effect transistor (FinFET) device, which is a transistor structure with a fin-like semiconductor channel that is raised vertically out of the silicon surface of an integrated circuit.